Page 30: of Maritime Logistics Professional Magazine (Q4 2015)

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TRAINING

We’re talking about young refugees, some with families and some the kids on their way through “ (the Balkans) from Syria or North Africa. (We) see this measure as setting the right signal to help people in the current situation and offer them a perspective for the future. – Meyer Werft spokesman, Peter Hackman ”

Sheltered environment:

Meyer Werft’s incredible work space

Courtesy Meyer Werft priority. “(We) see this measure as setting the right signal to help people in the current situation and offer them a perspec- tive for the future,” the yard says.

Northern Crisis

It’s ? ne work for a large European yard, but for the many small yards of, say, Norway, the economies of scale just aren’t there — nor is the economy. Local yards are keeping an eye on what Hackman calls “the ? uid situation.” At Norway’s Arc- tic border crossing with Russia, refugees on bicycles (to avoid a Russian law against crossing on foot) have their hotel stays paid for by a refugee center operator hired by Oslo. Billets tion. Ship owners here also own yards and training centers for for 100 bicycle-riding refugees include stately Statoil and a seamen, but courses require prior relevant education. Few of giant barracks it keeps for contractors attending the offshore the new arrivals have that, according to statistics keepers SSB. projects of Arctic town Hammerfest. Back at the bicycle border crossing, Norwegian Aftenposten

At nearby shipyard Kimek in Kirkenes — a town farther east reports border authorities as saying 5,000 refugees could de- than Istanbul — production boss Jorn Pedersen has plenty of scend on sparsely populated northern Norway by year’s end. experience training foreigners (and learning from them), and Over 1,000 have crossed. Yet, clouding the picture for ship-

Russian ships and seafarers are regulars at the covered yard. yards and extremists alike is a barrage of con? icting and con- “It depends on the work,” he says on the dif? culty of train- trived messages on the refugee “crisis” from economists, stat- ing newbies. “Some work takes two or three months to learn, isticians, politicians and journalists. but to learn (ship repair in full) takes up to 10 years. Our peo- As we write, Finance Minister Syv Jensen (Progress Par- ple can do many things, but a larger shipyard doesn’t need ty) is seen putting the cost of the refugee crisis at 9.5 billion as long to train,” he says. He suggests larger yards have the kroner for 2016 and 10 billion kroner over the following two luxury of keeping training simple and repetitive. Asked if he years. She says 4.2 billion kroner will be diverted from inter- would train refugees, he was clear: “I wouldn’t have done that. national aid to address the crisis of housing and training refu-

It’s too much work because we’re a small shipyard.” gees (Norway and frontline nation Bulgaria both have about 5,000 places available for refugees, according to the UN High

The Jobless vs. Refugees Commission for Refugees). Jensen says the refugees force

According to national statistics keepers in Norway, some “prioritizing”, “the price” to Norway of being “kind.” 25,000 “young men” have lost their jobs so far this year. A decade-long offshore vessel order boom has given way to Peculiar Timing oversupply. Headlines point squarely to layoffs at yards and In the run up to Jensen’s sober tally, the costs of immigra- offshore suppliers, and Pedersen admits it would be brutal to tion and of a foreign work force had been bandied about by train refugees in the current environment. the SSB. In a report the SSB co-authored, economist Roger

His reply is partly backed up by the of? cial “No comment on Bjornstad’s “societal” analysis tells Norwegians that immi- that issue” we got from the Norwegian Ship Owner’s Associa- gration slows salary growth. He says the collective bargaining 30 Maritime Professional 4Q 2015| | 18-33 Q4 MP2015.indd 30 11/18/2015 10:11:48 AM